Canada Research Chair in Family Financial Experiences and Wealth Inequality
Camille Biron-Boileau
I am a researcher interested in economic sociology, the sociology of the family, and gender studies. I am currently completing my Master’s degree in Population Studies at Institut national de la recherche scientifique and, as of September 2023, have begun a PhD in Sociology at the University of Chicago in the United States. Prior to my graduate studies, I completed a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Université de Montréal.
PhD Student in Sociology
The University of Chicago
Research Interests
Intergenerational financial transfers, estate planning, gender, family relations, social stratification
Research project
The Gendered Experience of Estate Planning in Quebec
My master’s project explores the influence of gender on how Quebec testators with children plan their succession. To investigate this question, I draw on theories of care work to see how individuals consider not only the financial security of their relatives, but also the relational and emotional implications of inheritance for them, in making their succession decisions. When it comes to choosing the shares allocated to heirs, negotiating with their family members, and justifying their decisions to those around them, testators perform gender by drawing on different conceptions of femininity and masculinity. Both men and women engage in care work through the succession planning process, but they do so in different ways, leading to different modalities for the transmission of wealth at death.
As part of my Ph.D., I wish to pursue research on similar themes by broadening my interest to intergenerational financial transfers, including inheritance, but also gifts made during the lifetime and financial investments from parents to children. More specifically, I wish to integrate a relational approach in stratification research studying these financial transfers. I’ll be looking at how relational and emotional considerations, at the intersection of gender, influence the circulation of wealth within families and contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities between generations.
Publications
Master’s thesis
Biron-Boileau, Camille. 2024. L’expérience genrée de planification successorale au Québec Master’s thesis. Québec, Université du Québec, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Master in Population Studies, 127 p.
Papers
Camille Biron-Boileau. 2024. « Inheriting in Canada: Portrait of Trends between 2005 and 2019 » Enfances Familles Générations 46. http://journals.openedition.org/efg/20613
Biron-Boileau, Camille. 2019. « Bessière, C. et S. Gollac. 2020. Le genre du capital. Comment la famille reproduit les inégalités. » Enfances Familles Générations. Revue interdisciplinaire sur la famille contemporaine, May. https://journals.openedition.org/efg/10037
Pugliese, Maude, Hélène Belleau, and Camille Biron-Boileau. 2023. « Conjugal Testamentary Practices in Canada: The Gendered Effect of Children from Other Unions ». Journal of Marriage and Family 85 (1): 134‑52. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12870